Playing it straight

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Just as well actor Phil Davis doesn't have a hang-up about his
height. "People see me as an archetypal hard man, which of course
I'm not. I'm five foot six (168 cm)," Davis says with a sigh that
suggests that the hard man has left the building. But for those
with clear memories of Davis as the domineering, Machiavellian
clerk Peter McLeish in the legal drama North Square, it's hard to
disguise one's surprise that such a formidable and aggressive
presence inhabits such a modest frame.

"People are always surprised at how short I am," he adds with
self-deprecating bemusement.

Davis is one of the most versatile, accomplished and hardworking
actors of a distinguished generation from the British stage and
screen. A 30-year veteran of film and television, he was first
noticed in 1979's Quadrophenia and has become a core
member of director Mike Leigh's regular troupe, his role in Leigh's
latest film, Vera Drake, earning him accolades and
possibly putting him in the running for an Oscar. And though he
often plays wily hoods and borderline psychopaths, roles that
overshadow his diverse repertoire, the persona carries with it a
challenge to which he is keen to rise.

"Part of the fun of being an actor is trying to break the mould.
Sometimes you get a role that really captures the public's
imagination and after that there's a danger you'll be offered pale
imitations of that character," he says.

"So I always look for something different. After North
Square people thought of me as this Dickensian tyke, but I
followed that with Archie in White Teeth, which was completely
different. That's the joy, really. I've managed to avoid being
typecast."

Davis' role in Rose and Maloney, now screening on the
ABC, offered him the chance to play his straightest character yet -
a number-crunching administrator assigned to the Criminal Justice
Review Agency. There he is partnered with a hothead case worker who
has been sidelined for her unorthodox ways.

"He's very straight and playing him is an exercise in
restraint," Davis says.

"The less you show, the more interesting he is and the more he
draws you in. Also, the relationship between him and Rose (Sarah
Lancashire) is very complicated. They are not made for each other.
They are chalk and cheese, but they like each other enormously and
are really very jealous of each other. She doesn't like the idea of
him working with anyone else, she longs for him and although
there's no sexual frisson there's a great deal of playfulness and
teasing going on all the time, and that again was one of the really
interesting things. It's nice to keep the fireworks in the box,
sometimes."

Davis says there is no single element that attracts him to a
project. In the case of his collaborations with Leigh, when there
is no script, it is the challenge and long-term commitment to the
director. With Rose and Maloney it was the combination of
playing a geek, against type and opposite Lancashire.

"But in a way the agenda is always set by the writers, it always
comes from the script."

He recently finished a Disney film about Casanova that stars
Heath Ledger, but says working on big American films is not a goal.
"I'd rather have a brilliant part in a small or low-budget British
film than a supporting role in a big American film. I've two
children, a 2-year-old girl and eight-year-old boy, and it's very
difficult working away from home."

Davis grew up in a working-class housing estate in Essex; his
father a factory worker, his mother raising the children. He admits
it was "rather an extraordinary thing to want to be" when, aged
seven or eight, he settled on becoming an actor.

"I've had a deal of success and approbation so I'm confident
now, but when I was a kid I was never sure. I was 18, 19 when I
started working and had no idea if I was going to last."

Davis says he wasn't influenced by any single actor or filmmaker
when he was learning the ropes - "I didn't emulate anyone, I always
thought 'how would I have done that?"' - but readily acknowledges
the extent to which he was shaped by the environment of 1960s
Britain.

"I just thought that acting would be a wonderful way of making a
living rather than a job in a factory. That was the major thing. I
didn't really have heroes in actors. I always liked Mike Leigh, who
I went on to work with. I saw his early work on television and
thought they were real people on screen, not like actors in a
drama. I remember laughing so much at one sequence, but I was sort
of laughing and embarrassed at the same time. Ken Loach, too. I
always liked the idea of making films about real life."